Eve ssto help!

[Single stage to ocean]

Should I use a pure nerv and propeller approach, or chemical rockets, propellors, and nuclear engines? What are all your (semi)-cheaty ways of reducing drag?

[Lt_Duckweed]

I have found that a pure prop + Nerv design is unable to get sufficient altitude to provide reasonable performance at Nerv ignition.

There has been a recent Renaissance in Eve sstos, and they tend to cluster around a family of values and ratios.

85-111 tons per vector engine

Vector:Nerv ratio between 1:1 and 1:2

Engine ignition between 15-17km

High twr, high nerv designs turn off vectors at about 2450 m/s

Low twr, low nerv count designs turn off vectors at about 2800m/s

As for drag reduction, if a fairing is the root part of the vessel it will have much lower drag than it should.  So the minmax drag reduction strategy for an eve ssto would be to use a small root fairing and smash everything inside of it.

[Single stage to ocean]

Sounds nice. Do fairings work if you dont actually build a fairing?

 

What kind of propellors to use?

 

Would aerospikes be better?

What kind of liquid fuel to rocket fuel ratio is best? maybe 1 unit lf to 8 units lfox.

And I am ok with a rocket that only reaches 2600m/s out of atmo b/c I can suborbital catch, but ssto is prefferable

[Single stage to ocean]

And i made a big mistake on my prototypes, I used big-s strakes that were backwards, where they have an AOA of 180 and generate near 0 lift and huge drag. Only attach them next to each other at AOA of 5 degrees with heading into airflow of zero. Issue is how to take off at a tolerable speed without having much wing. Maybe land vertically at sea level, reach high horizontal speed, and then climb. Again, eve is really mountainous. So landing is hard. Also, agressively remove nodes. I did this and got an eve glider that can glide on eve 4000m for 200m/s for 2 minute(but kind of cheaty, b/c i accidentally left hacked gravity on, otherwise.  drag is increased when i have to pitch up to avoid being pulled down.) Had exactly zero nodes

[Vanamonde]

As this is not a challenge, the thread has been moved to Gameplay Questions. 

[Single stage to ocean]

Followed your tips and have a ludicrous lift drag ratio of 5 at 11k meters. Thx so much.  I am short by 400m/s, but I have plenty of wiggle room, and I did a terrible ascent from Eve. Note to self, never use big-s wing strakes. They suck when they have an heading of not exactly zero, and you need large amount on eve for reaching15km Above Sea Level, even at maximum AOA. Adding more fuel, not activating nervs at 11k m where they have isp of 0, a enter ascent, and I’ll be successful

Edited May 19, 2021 by Single stage to ocean